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Organizational Justice and Physiological Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors in Japanese Employees: a Cross-Sectional Study

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Abstract

Background

Growing evidence has shown that lack of organizational justice (i.e., procedural justice and interactional justice) is associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) while biological mechanisms underlying this association have not yet been fully clarified.

Purpose

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the cross-sectional association of organizational justice with physiological CHD risk factors (i.e., blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein [HDL] cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein [LDL] cholesterol, and triglyceride) in Japanese employees.

Methods

Overall, 3598 male and 901 female employees from two manufacturing companies in Japan completed self-administered questionnaires measuring organizational justice, demographic characteristics, and lifestyle factors. They completed health checkup, which included blood pressure and serum lipid measurements. Multiple logistic regression analyses and trend tests were conducted.

Results

Among male employees, multiple logistic regression analyses and trend tests showed significant associations of low procedural justice and low interactional justice with high triglyceride (defined as 150 mg/dL or greater) after adjusting for demographic characteristics and lifestyle factors. Among female employees, trend tests showed significant dose-response relationship between low interactional justice and high LDL cholesterol (defined as 140 mg/dL or greater) while multiple logistic regression analysis showed only marginally significant or insignificant odds ratio of high LDL cholesterol among the low interactional justice group. Neither procedural justice nor interactional justice was associated with blood pressure or HDL cholesterol.

Conclusion

Organizational justice may be an important psychosocial factor associated with increased triglyceride at least among Japanese male employees.

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Acknowledgements

The present study was supported by MEXT KAKENHI Grant Number 21119001 and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 26253042.

Conflict of Interest

Author Akiomi Inoue, Author Norito Kawakami, Author Hisashi Eguchi, Author Koichi Miyaki, and Author Akizumi Tsutsumi declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Institute of Industrial Ecological Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, 1-1 Iseigaoka, Yahatanishi-ku, Kitakyushu 807-8555, Japan

    Akiomi Inoue

  2. Department of Mental Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

    Norito Kawakami

  3. Department of Public Health, Kitasato University School of Medicine, 1-15-1 Kitasato, Minami-ku, Sagamihara 252-0374, Japan

    Hisashi Eguchi, Koichi Miyaki & Akizumi Tsutsumi

  4. Division of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Clinical Research and Informatics, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, 1-21-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan

    Koichi Miyaki

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  1. Akiomi Inoue
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  5. Akizumi Tsutsumi
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Correspondence to Akiomi Inoue.

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Inoue, A., Kawakami, N., Eguchi, H. et al. Organizational Justice and Physiological Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors in Japanese Employees: a Cross-Sectional Study. Int.J. Behav. Med. 22, 775–785 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-015-9480-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-015-9480-4

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